<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are still some decisions to be made behind the scenes by the team on whether I\u2019ll be here or not, but I would love to defend it,\u201d added the Brit. \u201cI have to say there\u2019s a lot of decision-making behind the scenes, a lot of discussions. I would love to be here, but it\u2019s not fully my decision.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yates\u2019 2025 Giro turnaround<\/p>\n
Yates\u2019 Giro victory earlier this year owed much to his performance on the Colle delle Finestre, a climb that still carries clear significance in his career. It was on the Finestre in 2018 that he famously lost the maglia rosa after leading the race for two weeks, a moment that shaped the narrative around him for several seasons.<\/p>\n
In 2025 he returned to the climb needing to overturn a deficit on the penultimate stage \u2014 and this time it proved decisive. His move on the gravel section of the ascent distanced the key GC rivals and put him back on course for the overall victory, ultimately riding into Rome with a winning margin of nearly four minutes. Reflecting on the replay of those stages during Monday\u2019s presentation, Yates told Eurosport:<\/p>\n
\u201cEven now, when I see the images, I still become emotional. What a moment for me, really still unbelievable, actually.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Finestre, once the site of his Giro collapse, became the point where he effectively secured the second Grand Tour title of his career.<\/p>\n
Vingegaard\u2019s Giro ambitions complicate selection: \u201cPart of the discussions\u201dThe main uncertainty for Yates now revolves around Jonas Vingegaard<\/a>. The two-time Tour de France winner has spoken about wanting to complete the set of Grand Tours, and a Giro debut in 2026 remains possible<\/a>. Yates made clear that Vingegaard\u2019s ambitions are a central factor in Visma\u2019s planning for next season.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is all part of the discussions in what would happen and also what that would do for my year, with the Tour de France too,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, a lot of discussions happening all last week with the team, a lot of meetings every day, quite exhausting. But we\u2019re getting to the finer details now, so hopefully you guys can have some real information soon.\u201d<\/p>\n Yates\u2019 first verdict on 2026 route: \u201cReally, really hard\u201d<\/p>\n This year\u2019s presentation confirmed a Giro that begins in Bulgaria on 8 May before heading through southern Italy, Naples, Tuscany and Milan, finishing in Rome on 31 May. The 3,459-kilometre route includes 49,150 metres of climbing, eight sprint stages, seven medium-mountain stages, five mountain stages and a single individual time trial.<\/p>\n Asked for his first impression, Yates offered a typically understated assessment: \u201cNothing really jumped out; it looked like a really hard race as always, maybe stage 19 looked really, really hard, somewhere you can make a big difference.\u201d<\/p>\n Stage 19 \u2014 featuring two ascents of Piancavallo over 199 km \u2014 is widely expected to be the final GC battleground.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cThere are still some decisions to be made behind the scenes by the team on whether I\u2019ll…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":609577,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4104],"tags":[4230,42456,31323,81082,79,180916,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-609576","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-giro-ditalia","10":"tag-jonas-vingegaard","11":"tag-simon-yates","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-team-visma-lease-a-bike","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115655820122509322","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=609576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/609577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=609576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=609576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=609576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}